10.5

I know I said I wasn't going to say anything about my job anymore, but, well, I am.  Nothing bad, I am just thinking out loud that's all.  I've been sitting in the lull all week.  Barely able to bill 9 hours when I need to be billing 10.5 per day.  So needless to say I fell short this week/month by a couple of hours.  I've calculated March and April down to the very last .1 of an hour, because as the partner says, every .1 counts.

It is, in theory, possible for me to hit 2000 hours.  Part of me thinks - well I did it for 2 months - I billed over 200 hours two months in a row, what's another 2 months.  I did it though by working every weekend but 1.  How unappealing is that.

Right now though, given that things have slowed down and I've caught up, I don't actually have enough work to keep me busy at the pace required to hit the 2000 hours.  Now of course this could change in an instant, however, I am not expecting things to pick up next week.  And I really need the stream of work to be steady to the point of backing up on me.

So I have to do something.  I either have to decide to go for it and tell the partner that I need work and I need it to back up on me again or I won't make it.  I need to tell him to dig me up work.  Or I have to decide not to go for it and be okay with falling between 25 and 50 hours short.  But what was all this effort for the past two months only to come up short?

I don't know which way to go.  I don't know what to do.  I never wanted to do this in the first place, but if I do maybe I will get the raise and the bonus that I would expect for doing it.  Or who knows, maybe I wouldn't in which case what was the point.  Because let's be honest about this - I am not working my ass off to hit 2000 hours because the partner wants me to or because it makes me or him look good.  I am doing it because although it's a stretch, it is possible, and I am doing it solely for the money.  It's really that simple.  The problem is, they aren't guaranteeing us the money that we used to be guaranteed.  So is it worth it?  I won't know until October and January.  The reward comes so much later than the effort.

So I am at the point of either really going for it or really not going for it.  And if I am going for it, I have to tell the partner because I can't really afford a single slow week if I am going to hit it and he doesn't realize that my work load is too low.

Or I could wait around a few days and see if it picks up, but like I said, I can't really afford a slow day, it throws the whole calculation off.

It's a constant process of calculating and recalculating.  How many hours do I need to bill per day for the rest of the month accounting for the hours that I billed yesterday.  I do this daily.  Run the numbers.  See if I can squeeze in a couple of days off.

Anyway, whatever.